But, only actually seeing the potential client trying to use the app was an eye-opening experience.Īs a solo founder, another tool that works for me is so-called mastermind groups. I thought I was by doing a few demo calls each month.

I’ve completed the Y Combinator Startup School course, and they’ve repeated “Talk to your clients…“ like a mantra. As a result, I’ve recently released significant fixes to how the app works that seem so obvious now. But, a single reversed-demo call allowed me to understand how cumbersome was app’s messaging UX. It’s extremely frustrating ( “Just click THERE…“). Instead of doing the demo myself, I’ve started asking clients to show me how they’re trying to use the app. What helps me are demo calls for potential clients. It’s hard to keep a fresh perspective when you’ve worked on the same app for so long. The fun of just coding without all the formalities has always dragged me to spend way too much time on my side projects.īut, I’ve missed out on obvious improvements that would have been spotted much earlier if the project had a co-founder. No standup calls… Communication overhead is always a significant portion of software development. I know the codebase by heart, I don’t have to consult requirements or write tickets. My productivity is often off the charts compared to when I’ve worked in a team. Memoirs of a solo founderīeing a solo founder is a double-edged sword. Since the start of Covid, I offer free plans for education purposes, and Abot is now used in classes at universities across the globe. It has close to 100 paying Slack teams, ranging from 10 to over 4k users, and a similar number of free-of-charge teams. So far, the app has been installed by over 5k Slack teams and is featured in Slack brilliant bots category. The chart does not include profit for teams with over 500 users

Slack bots